We Are Water

A Novel

By: Wally Lamb

Narrated by: Wally Lamb, George Guidall, Maggi-Meg Reed, Tavia Gilbert, Richard Ferrone, Edoardo Ballerini, Cynthia Darlow, Therese Plummer, Sandy Rustin

Length: 23 hrs and 11 mins

Publisher's summary

We Are Water is a disquieting and ultimately uplifting audiobook about a marriage, a family, and human resilience in the face of tragedy, from Wally Lamb, the New York Times best-selling author of The Hour I First Believed and I Know This Much is True.

After 27 years of marriage and three children, Anna Oh - wife, mother, outsider artist - has fallen in love with Viveca, the wealthy Manhattan art dealer who orchestrated her success. They plan to wed in the Oh family's hometown of Three Rivers in Connecticut. But the wedding provokes some very mixed reactions and opens a Pandora's Box of toxic secrets - dark and painful truths that have festered below the surface of the Ohs' lives.

We Are Water is a layered portrait of marriage, family, and the inexorable need for understanding and connection, told in the alternating voices of the Ohs: nonconformist, Anna; her ex-husband, Orion, a psychologist; Ariane, the do-gooder daughter, and her twin, Andrew, the rebellious only son; and free-spirited Marissa, the youngest. It is also a portrait of modern America, exploring issues of class, changing social mores, the legacy of racial violence, and the nature of creativity and art.

With humor and compassion, Wally Lamb brilliantly captures the essence of human experience and the ways in which we search for love and meaning in our lives.

The complete list of narrators includes Robin Miles and Sandy Rustin.

©2013 Wally Lamb (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

ONE OF THE BEST LISTENS EVER...

Many listeners before me have review this book in detail, So, just let me express my delight in a story so true to human nature in all its aspects. A story that is engaging, gripping, heartbreaking, and uplifting at the same time. A story where the characters are very real.
Maybe not the best but certainly one of the most enjoyable things for an audiobook lover is a good narration. And believe me the narration is GREAT.
As they say "DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND LISTEN TO THIS BOOK"

Excellent storyline and character development

This was a fascinating story. It's a little long but the character development that happens is amazing. I was sad when this book was finished and there were many parts throughout the story where I literally laughed/gasped/cringed aloud because it was easy to get involved with these characters lives and emotions. I would highly recommend this book. Wally is a great story teller.

Lamb Never Disappoints

Wally Lamb writes big books. They're long, luscious, complex, layered with flawed characters. Just the kind of book I love to listen on audio. You get so invested in the story and character that if you listen while on your daily walk, you take a longer route so you don't have to stop listening so soon. If you listen while straightening up your house -- your house looks better because of the book. And when you listen in the car, you don't care that there's a lot of stop and go traffic because you are with the Ohs.

And, when you start listening to the third and final download you wish that there was a fourth.

My only surprise is that at the end of the book - Lamb shares with us what "we are water" means as if he didn't trust the readers to figure out out ourselves. I found that a bit out of character - not necessarily disappointed that he shared his thinking but I think a good book club conversation could have come up with that interpretation as well.

Loved the interview with Lamb at the end of the book - it was a joy to hear his writing process - that he doesn't know where the story is going and he lets the story take him there when he is in the zone.

Okay, so now I'll probably have to waiting until 2019 for another book. It will be worth the wait. Lamb is absolutely one of my favorites!

Loved, loved, loved

If you could sum up We Are Water in three words, what would they be?

Top of my list

What was one of the most memorable moments of We Are Water?

Annie's break through

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

At first I didn't think I would enjoy the different narrators but I ended up loving all of them.

WOW

Please do not be disheartened by the folks saying this book was too slow.. I had trepidation to begin listening because of that, and I am SO glad I trusted my gut. Amazing storytelling... Huge depth of characters (hence the length), humor, sadness, love disgust.. It all hits you where it counts when you really get to know and care for his characters. What a great novel.. so many tough emotions (some sickening), but truly excellent writing. Explore your boundaries and give this read a chance!

Excellent in every way

Loved this book. A perfect listen. Lamb is one of the few authors who successfully reads his work. Story line was compelling and complex. Superb audio book.

Maggi Reed worst reader ever

Would you try another book from Wally Lamb and/or the narrators?

love Wally Lamb and George Guidall but that's it. Maybe someone should have listened to the performance?

Would you recommend We Are Water to your friends? Why or why not?

worst reader ever

How could the performance have been better?

Get a different one

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

nah

Any additional comments?

disappointed

First-person, present tense

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I'll start with what I liked best. I liked the way that the novel rises out of the roots of the story of a poor, young, self-taught black artist in the 1950s and that all the things that happen to him give rise to everything else in the novel and touch every single life. An author gets to play God, and Lamb does it really really well. The way he sees lives unfolding and the interconnectedness between people in generation after generation and the way they're impacted by the moment in the culture in which they live resonates with me, and I think Lamb is a genius in that way.

He chose to write in a point of view that shifts from character to character AND he makes them all first person present tense. It's quite ambitious to do both. It's like this: I am driving...I take a drink of water...I see a sign for a restaurant I used to go to...I change the channel on the radio...etc. That kind of thing all through the novel. What he gains in the sense of immediacy that works really well in pivotal moments he loses in how self conscious it seems at other times. This is not helped by two of the narrators--the one for Vivica and especially the one for Annie Oh--who overact. They're so affected. It's funny because I listened to the interview with Lamb at the conclusion of the book and he talked about his experience narrating the part of Orion Oh, how the director told him not to overact. Why didn't the director give the same direction to the other actors? While some of the actors' narrations got in the way of the novel, Lamb's effortlessly conveyed his character.

Finally--there are some violent parts of the book that are too much for me. But that is most likely just me. I am more sensitive to violence than most people.

Yes!

Loved everything about this book!! This story will stay with me for a long time!

Good. Not great

Where does We Are Water rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Probably in the top 30%.

Did the narration match the pace of the story?

Yes. It matched the pace but I just didn't like the person who narrated for the voice of Kent nor of Annie.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It was a rich story but there came a time where I almost put it aside. It gets into the matter of child molestation and the story is told from the point of view of the molester and how he would stalk his prey. As a mother of 2 small children, it was quite disturbing to hear and more than once I considered dropping the book but stuck with it

Any additional comments?

If you have any aversion to listening to an author talk, in great detail, about how they preyed upon then molested children then this book is not for you. I think the details were a bit over elaborated on when it came to this part of the story.
Also, I just couldn't get into Annie's or Kent's character voices.